One month to go
Ella Borrie (Victoria University, Aotearoa/New Zealand)
My pandemic boyfriend flinched
when I told him where I grew up.
I made him take a photo by the fruit sculpture–
Irish man, not thrilled about a town
named after Oliver Cromwell.
We knew from the start
that he would have to leave.
It was the first time it felt good to be in love.
He and I were mellowing–
softer every day
as his visa expired.
We spent hours in the car
driving the spine of the island
to get back for Christmas.
Glaciers hovered above us
melting streams into the leaky tent.
I took him to sacred places–
light in beech forest
dancing over leaf-litter.
We paddled on deep water
road covered in moss.
When we went over the Lindis
the land gave way to swaying gold
and he whispered, you grew up here?
It’s so different from home.
I introduced him to Grandma Joan and Johnny
married 60 years. Johnny said
she is my other self.
We tried to laugh
about where we would break-up–
at the airport gate or
the exact point he flew
out of my time zone.
I cried every day
and drove myself to the river alone.
Walked past tailings–
the restacked ground
baked with heat
and threw myself in the water.
The Kawarau was silting up.
Wanting to rebraid–
undo and redo itself
to find its way through.
Ella Borrie is a Te Whanganui-a-Tara based poet from Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand and is pursuing an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern letters. She was awarded the Biggs Family Prize in Poetry. Her work appears in Mimicry, Starling, Stasis Journal, Landfall and Turbine | Kapohau.
